Wisconsin Basketball 2022-23

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, Oxy said:

I love Gard, but it is fair to say he and the staff have missed on a fair number of recent recruits/transfers. Heck, Klesmit basically begged to come to UW and he's been one of the better additions in the last few years.  Mors, Hodges, Ilver, Carlson, Bowmen, Neath, Lindsey, and McGee have been so underwhelming that we have played a preferred WO-Gilmore- far more than any of those names (And it's not because Gilmore is a diamond in the rough).

Again, Gard is basically a miracle worker as far as working with what he's got, but with UWs success we should be able to attract some more talent.

Neath averaged over 5ppg in the ACC as a freshman & shot 48% from deep. He just hasn't been able to get healthy. That's bad luck more than anything. And as I said in an earlier post, you identified early & recruited a wing that was such a monumental success you only had him as a starter for one year. Those two add to the talent level quite a bit.

As to the rest, you had a kid (Carlson) who would help the current roster. He left, and Vander Plas & Basile just weren't coming here with Wahl & Crowl both on the roster. Mors was a big miss, for sure. McGee had a nice freshman year at GB; his ineffective play has been really curious to me. Lots of bigs have contributed to success here after not playing much their first couple years, so I'll tap the brakes for now regarding Hodges & Ilver.

Don't know what the roster will look like in the years to come, but IMO the kids who have committed & the ones they're currently recruiting possess more than enough talent.

 

 

[CheezWizHed]

On 1/18/2023 at 10:35 AM, MrTPlush said:

You are correct. I accidently took note of the COVID year...which every team in basketball missed.

No, we won the NCAA championship in 2020!  

[MrTPlush]

39 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

No, we won the NCAA championship in 2020!  

LOL, I almost mentioned this when he reminded me Gard only missed the postseason once. Then I thought of 2020 and then I remembered the simulated 'ship. Wisco fans were clinging to that thing just about as hard as UCF fans clung to being national champions that undefeated year. 

[homer]

1 hour ago, CheezWizHed said:

No, we won the NCAA championship in 2020!  

I totally forgot about that! I need one of those shirts.

[stoutdude04]

17 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

LOL, I almost mentioned this when he reminded me Gard only missed the postseason once. Then I thought of 2020 and then I remembered the simulated 'ship. Wisco fans were clinging to that thing just about as hard as UCF fans clung to being national champions that undefeated year. 

But Wisconsin did win* the title that year...soooo, we are right to cling to it!

[CheezWizHed]

It is more than the Viking fans have to cling to!

[Oxy]

On 1/19/2023 at 12:57 AM, Jim French Stepstool said:

Neath averaged over 5ppg in the ACC as a freshman & shot 48% from deep. He just hasn't been able to get healthy. That's bad luck more than anything. And as I said in an earlier post, you identified early & recruited a wing that was such a monumental success you only had him as a starter for one year. Those two add to the talent level quite a bit.

As to the rest, you had a kid (Carlson) who would help the current roster. He left, and Vander Plas & Basile just weren't coming here with Wahl & Crowl both on the roster. Mors was a big miss, for sure. McGee had a nice freshman year at GB; his ineffective play has been really curious to me. Lots of bigs have contributed to success here after not playing much their first couple years, so I'll tap the brakes for now regarding Hodges & Ilver.

Don't know what the roster will look like in the years to come, but IMO the kids who have committed & the ones they're currently recruiting possess more than enough talent.

Of course there is a reason for all of them...but really only Neath's is a legitimate reason.  There will ALWAYS be misses, but when they pile up all at once it creates a thin roster.  Ultimately, that is the responsibility of the staff.  At the same time, the season certainly isn't a failure by any means, and it still has a chance to become a great success despite the lack of depth, which is a credit to the staff's coaching chops.  Hopefully we can being in or develop more depth in the future.

[Jim French Stepstool]

The cancelled game vs Northwestern has been scheduled for Monday at 2:30 (BTN).

[Brewcrew82]

6 hours ago, Oxy said:

Of course there is a reason for all of them...but really only Neath's is a legitimate reason.  There will ALWAYS be misses, but when they pile up all at once it creates a thin roster.  Ultimately, that is the responsibility of the staff.  At the same time, the season certainly isn't a failure by any means, and it still has a chance to become a great success despite the lack of depth, which is a credit to the staff's coaching chops.  Hopefully we can being in or develop more depth in the future.

Bowman is a legitimate reason, too imo. Kid had some personal challenges that made staying in Madison impossible. While he's not exactly lighting the world on fire right now for Oakland, he still showed a lot of promise in the brief time he was on the court, particularly with respect to his shooting. We'd be better off with him instead of McGee. 

[Brewcrew82]

2 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

The cancelled game vs Northwestern has been scheduled for Monday at 2:30 (BTN).

Good. Assuming they'll be still missing some players and the crowd will be on the low side. Time to kick some butt and pick up a Quad 1 win and regain our standing on Ken Pom. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

6 hours ago, Oxy said:

Of course there is a reason for all of them...but really only Neath's is a legitimate reason.  There will ALWAYS be misses, but when they pile up all at once it creates a thin roster.  Ultimately, that is the responsibility of the staff.  At the same time, the season certainly isn't a failure by any means, and it still has a chance to become a great success despite the lack of depth, which is a credit to the staff's coaching chops.  Hopefully we can being in or develop more depth in the future.

Good points in this post. But I disagree with Davis leaving early not being a "legitimate reason", unless you expected them to anticipate his blowing up the way he did & leaving after two seasons. In that vein, maybe they should be criticized more for not getting Antonio Reeves to replace him than missing out on the frontcourt depth. At least you had a starting spot to dangle there.

Either way, sure you'd like to have another good big. I just don't know of anyone of quality who would've answered to "Come to Wisconsin & be a backup frontcourt guy." That's what they had to sell. From the aspect of that specific role, I say the best you could hope for was Carlson not bailing (can THAT be pinned on the staff? I have no idea). You could say they should've gotten better people than Ilver & Hodges. Maybe. But at that time Wahl was already here and Crowl was here or on his way, as was Carlson. Kids look at stuff like that.

Bottom line, they lost one of their 2-3 most important players for a few games. In games he was available the depth was sufficient to help them get to 12-2 & 4-0 thus far. Lose a guy of Wahls' importance & it's tough for them to absorb that, I agree.

[Jim French Stepstool]

40 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Bowman is a legitimate reason, too imo. We'd be better off with him instead of McGee. 

Sure seems that way, yeah. I knew very little of McGees' game when he transferred, but averaging 10ppg as a freshman, even in the Horizon League, leads you to think he'd be pretty good giving you 5-8 minutes as a backup PG. You hear about the "rules" they need to follow on the court. I suspect he had very few of those to follow on a bad GB team last year. Now THAT could be labeled a mistake, not seeing that he wouldn't acclimate here. But I think the role is still a competition btwn him & Lindsey so we'll see if the light comes on.

I wrongly thought Bowman would plug right in & produce at Oakland. Hope his issues are behind him.

[Jim French Stepstool]

On 1/20/2023 at 10:09 PM, Jim French Stepstool said:

The cancelled game vs Northwestern has been scheduled for Monday at 2:30 (BTN).

Just learned the starting time for this game has been moved to 5:30, for anyone interested.

[LouisEly]

11 hours ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Just learned the starting time for this game has been moved to 5:30, for anyone interested.

I am interested - that gives me a chance to go to the game

[Oxy]

UW SHOULD be able to absorb the lack of a Klesmit...but he would be ideal in guarding Audige. NW plays great defense, although it's better than it should be when Gard has Ilver, Gilmore and Lindsey on the floor at the same time.

[Oxy]

UGH. An excruciating L, but that's the road in the B1G.  I was impressed by the moxie of an outmanned NW squad.  Just a whole lot of "meh" in this game other than a nice showing by Jordan Davis. That Barnhizer kid made some key plays in the last 10 minutes.

It could be worse. We could be Duke😆. About to lose a bad VTech team with easily the best recruiting class in the country. NW might actually make the Tourney. #FireScheyer

[Jim French Stepstool]

2 hours ago, Oxy said:

UW SHOULD be able to absorb the lack of a Klesmit...but he would be ideal in guarding Audige. 

Great point. That's what's frustrating. In three of these four most recent losses we were missing someone who would be an ideal defender for a guy that really hurt us.

[Jim French Stepstool]

They'll have to figure out how to run offense when being overplayed in the half court. Indiana did it for 40 minutes, as well as i've seen that team defend for an entire game since Bob Knight was there. Tonight was the same, with a different wrinkle--Wahl & Crowl were doubled in the post, and neither handled it very well. It was frustrating that it took 20 minutes to adjust, but sometimes it takes getting 10-15 minutes in the locker room. Seemed to have things figured out, then went dry the final 4-5 minutes, in particular the possession coming out of the TO with maybe 3:00 or so left. I think they wanted to go to Wahl, but that was blown up & the whole thing just got really ugly.

Davis was active & gave them some scoring. But he also missed 2-3 box outs in the 2nd half that really hurt. Frankly I'd rather see him score 6-7 & do the other stuff consistently, like it seemed he was doing earlier.

Didn't see the box, but we left some points on the FT line again.

Maybe the rollercoaster is going uphill again for McGee. He looked a little more comfortable in the flow tonight.

They virtually never go high-low with Wahl & Crowl & I'd like to see it sometimes. It worked a time or 2 vs Penn State. Either one in either spot, really.

This is neither here nor there, but I found it curious that Northwestern was so decimated by sickness & injury that they couldn't play Saturday, but two days later everyone in their rotation was available.

 

[LouisEly]

IIRC, they said that Northwestern was #1 in the nation in defending the 2-point area or something to that effect.  They certainly showed it, and the only question is if they make their shots.

[yourout]

The ceiling for this group is making the dance and that might be too high a bar.

[yourout]

Obviously Gard had earned some slack but with the NIL and the portal i could see things unravel quickly if a blue blood snipes Essegien and Chucky decided to leave.

[Oxy]

It was no secret this team is thin.  Klesmit out really hurts the D, and Wahl is still rounding into form. Get everybody healthy and get some Ws.  This team at full strength CAN still compete against anybody, but that certainly doesn't mean that they will.  If they remain injured and the leaders fold, it could REALLY go South to Chryst-ian proportions.  That would be sad.  It's not just the losing, it's HOW they have lost.  Just utterly physically dominated tonight.

[Jim French Stepstool]

Of the recent losses, I felt they could've won any of them if healthy, with the exception of Indiana. Now you can add this one to the list. Poor paint defense, from allowing dribble penetration to sealing off the weak side, and way too many 2nd & 3rd chances. I don't want to pick on Davis, but on this team he's really needed to be active on the boards on both ends, work hard on D & don't do anything dumb in the halfcourt. Kinda like the mindset of a more athletic Gilmore. It was nice to see his contributions in Evanston but my worst fear is him thinking he can/should score 15 pts every time out.

Don't want this to sound like an excuse---there's no doubt they aren't playing nearly well enough---but it would be nice if they ran into someone who didn't go out & play 40 really solid minutes. Even in the win, from where we were sitting I thought Penn State played a very solid game.

Chucky is a good kid who really seems to be letting the pressure get to him these last couple games.

[Jim French Stepstool]

16 hours ago, yourout said:

The ceiling for this group is making the dance and that might be too high a bar.

Over the years I've seen teams ranked in the top 1 or 2 in the nation drop totally out of the rankings a month later. I've also seen a team that was at one point 13-12 make it to the final four. If they don't enjoy better luck with health & start building some momentum, yeah, the bar is low. If they do, then something else. They're built on gathering momentum through getting stops, then letting that fuel the offense. Two of their best defenders have been available together for about 17 game-minutes in the last six games. 

Let's get Klesmit back, hopefully stay healthy, & let it unfold.

[LouisEly]

They've lost five of six.  They've also played five of the last six on the road.  Not sure why the Big Ten allowed that in a schedule.

Most teams are thin.  Between the portal and one-and-done for the NBA, few teams have anyone other than true freshmen coming off of the bench.  The portal is a crap shoot - nobody wants to come off of the bench unless it's a team with a legit shot at the final four.  If most teams ranked 15-25 a few weeks ago lost a starter for a stretch when they played most of their games on the road, they wouldn't be ranked any longer either.